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President Donald Trump speaks June 7 in Cincinnati with a coal barge stationed as a prop in the background. Multiple government agencies have detailed the folly of his policy on fossil fuels. (Associated Press File)

As the Trump administration relentlessly contradicts global consensus about the dangers posed by climate change, it also ignores the U.S. government’s repeated warnings about the costs of doing so.

In August, to its credit, the administration did not attempt to block the release of the National Climate Assessment by scientists from 13 federal agencies. The report holds that climate change is driven by human action, warns that seas could rise as high as 8 feet by 2100, and details climate-related changes in the United States due to an average global temperature increase of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since 1900.

Yet a week after the report was released, the administration sent delegates to a global climate change summit in Germany and promoted coal-fueled power generation, clearly one of the principal drivers of climate change.

In October the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office urged the administration to start paying attention to the rising economic costs to the government due to climate change.

Last week, the Department of the Interior’s inspector general issued a report saying that climate change is “one of the most significant management and performance challenges” facing the department, and that the effects of a “changing climate are a cross-cutting, complex issue.”

Yet Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has continued to pursue additional coal mining and other fossil fuel projects across many of the 500 million acres under the department’s control.

The pro-military administration also has ignored the Pentagon’s repeated declarations that climate change is among the most serious national security issues because adverse weather affects everything from operations to the stability of foreign governments. The devastating civil war in Syria, for example, grew from protests of the government’s failure to deal with an extended drought.

Ignoring plain facts and acting directly contrary to them in favor of ideology and narrow interests is dangerous policy that the Trump administration should reverse.

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